Effects of absurdity in advertising on attitude toward the ad and recall

Absurdity is widely used by advertising practitioners, whereas the researches on effects of absurdity in advertising are quite limited. In this study, the effects of absurdity in advertising on attitude toward the ad and recall of the brand name and slogan in the ad were examined with an experimental approach. The effects were examined by being compared the presence and absence of a visual absurd stimulus on the print ads that were created for a fictitious outdoor clothing brand. 160 university students participated to the main experiment and they were randomly assigned to two equivalent treatment groups according to viewing absurd or non-absurd print ads. The findings revealed that the subjects who viewed the absurd ad had more positive attitudes toward the ad than the ones who viewed the non-absurd ad. As a result of the recall test it was found that absurdity increases the brand name recall. However, there was not a significant difference on slogan recall. Additionally, the results of the content analysis of the unaided recall test sheets revealed that the visual absurd element of the ad might cause misremembering of the slogan.